The arrest was part of a crackdown on speech that the authorities say is inciting hatred of the government. Critics say officials are silencing calls for accountability.

© Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York

The government is pushing hard to raise turnout in an election overshadowed by a deadly fire and public anger over safety lapses and official accountability.

© Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Petr Yan stunned Merab Dvalishvili with a dominating effort to capture the bantamweight title by unanimous decision at UFC 323 on Saturday night.

Dear Abby advises a teacher on how to deal with difficult parents.

The department cited an NIL buyout clause in Wilson's contract and requested that a judge compel the defensive end to enter arbitration to reach a settlement.

Old State Saloon owner Mark Fitzpatrick defends his bar's viral immigration promotion offering free beer to anyone who helps ICE despite receiving death threats.

Investigators said the file later contained explicit entries describing sexual activity and planning when they would meet privately.

The Canadian politician and the pop star first appeared in a photo shared on Friday by former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida after the group spent time together in Japan.

Two baby-faced Florida teens allegedly lured a 14-year-old girl into the woods before they fatally shot her and set her remains on fire over an online dispute.

• Dane makes stunning up-and-down on final hole to beat Australian

• Rory McIlroy finishes 14th but says it has been an ‘amazing week’

Cameron Smith has come up just short in his bid for a coveted maiden Australian Open title as Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen made an up-and-down for the ages on the final hole at Royal Melbourne.

The pair were tied at 15-under coming to the par four-18th on Sunday and it looked as though Smith was in the box seat when he landed his second shot on the green.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Josh Chadwick/Getty Images

© Photograph: Josh Chadwick/Getty Images

© Photograph: Josh Chadwick/Getty Images

Tom Hicks, the Texas businessman who owned two Dallas-area pro sports franchises and an English Premier League soccer team, died Saturday. He was 79.

Easy-to-guess words and figures still dominate, alarming cysbersecurity experts and delighting hackers

It is a hacker’s dream. Even in the face of repeated warnings to protect online accounts, a new study reveals that “admin” is the most commonly used password in the UK.

The second most popular, “123456”, is also unlikely to keep hackers at bay.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: imageBROKER.com/Alamy

© Photograph: imageBROKER.com/Alamy

© Photograph: imageBROKER.com/Alamy

David Lammy’s plans to cut the the number of jury trials in England and Wales. A defendant, a victim, a barrister, a KC, a judge and a juror have concerns

This week the justice secretary, David Lammy, announced sweeping changes to the criminal justice system that will significantly reduce the number of jury trials in England and Wales. Under the radical plans, jury trials will be reserved for cases in “indictable-only” offences such as murder or rape, and “either-way” offences (those where the defendant can currently decide whether they will be tried by a jury or magistrates), with a likely sentence of more than three years in prison.

While Lammy backed down on plans to remove jury trials for all cases involving a maximum jail term of five years, the move has led to an outcry from MPs, lawyers and campaigners. The Guardian spoke to a range of people who have seen juries’ work close up about their experiences and the proposals.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Image Source/Getty Images

© Photograph: Image Source/Getty Images

© Photograph: Image Source/Getty Images

Italian sweets, Irish smoked fish, honey cakes in Belgium … travel writers choose the stores and local delicacies they make a beeline for when travelling

I fell in love with Belgian snacks when cycling the amateur version of the Tour of Flanders some years ago. The feed stations along the route were crammed with packets of Meli honey waffles and Meli honey cake. I ate so many that I suffered withdrawal symptoms after finishing the last of them at the end of the 167-mile route.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Martin Corlazzoli

© Photograph: Martin Corlazzoli

© Photograph: Martin Corlazzoli

Duke won its first outright Atlantic Coast Conference title since 1962 and threw the College Football Playoff into chaos on Saturday night.

Duke scored a touchdown and hauled in an interception in overtime to clinch a consequential ACC championship over Virginia, which could disrupt the CFP picture.

Cameras capture lone creature collecting materials for its lodge in riverside nature reserve

A wild beaver has been spotted in Norfolk for the first time since beavers were hunted to extinction in England at the beginning of the 16th century.

It was filmed dragging logs and establishing a lodge in a “perfect beaver habitat” on the River Wensun at Pensthorpe, a nature reserve near Fakenham in Norfolk.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Handout

© Photograph: Handout

© Photograph: Handout

Kildunne is known for her startling speed and audacious tries, but there’s more to the talented full-back than rugby, from a passion for photography to a sideline in DIY tattooing

Ellie Kildunne says it’s not quite sunk in yet. A couple of months on from winning the Rugby Union World Cup with her England teammates, she’s still on a high. I ask if she slept with her winner’s medal by her bed the night they won. “That night?” She gives me a look. “It’s still by my bed. Every day. I wake up and the medal’s next to my bed. And it’s, like, as if!”

But Kildunne is not resting on her laurels. She says the medal is also a reminder of what’s left to achieve – for her, and for women’s rugby in general. “Your heart’s telling you that you’ve done it, but I need to refocus. So it’s about how can we win the prem, how can we win another Six Nations, more World Cups? How can we keep fans coming to games? We’ve sold out Twickenham, so how do we do it again?”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alex Ingram/Photo by Alex Ingram

© Photograph: Alex Ingram/Photo by Alex Ingram

© Photograph: Alex Ingram/Photo by Alex Ingram

As peace hopes falter, infantry soldiers face more long deployments risking their lives against Russian attacks

For almost all of their 62-day deployment on the frontline west of Pokrovske, Bohdan and Ivan hid – first in a village shop, then, after a deadly firefight with Russian soldiers, in a tiny basement where the infantrymen from Ukraine’s 31st Brigade had to survive seven more weeks.

Food, water, cigarettes and other supplies were airlifted in by a friendly drone, their toilet was their 3 sq metre room, their nearest comrades 200 metres or so away. Their only hope was to remain underground, because they knew if they were detected a Russian drone could kill them all.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian

© Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian

© Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian

Bureaucratic delays and funding shortages stall plans to carve out a forest reserve for the uncontacted Indigenous group on the southern fringe of the Brazilian Amazon

In 2024, agents of the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai) walked more than 60 miles through rainforest on the southern fringe of the Brazilian Amazon on a mission to monitor and help protect a group of Indigenous people who had no contact with the modern world.

What they found was a small basket freshly woven from leaves, a child’s footprints on the bank of a creek, and tree trunks hacked open hours before to extract honey. There were huts abandoned a year before that were sinking into the forest floor, and brazil nut pods discarded around old campfires. They were all signs that the Pardo River Kawahiva people were there.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Funai

© Photograph: Funai

© Photograph: Funai

The royal couple chose their 20th wedding anniversary portrait taken in Rome this year for their official holiday greeting card

King Charles and Queen Camilla have chosen their 20th wedding anniversary portrait for their official Christmas card this year.

Charles and Camilla are pictured standing side by side, with the queen’s arm linking the king’s, in the grounds of Villa Wolkonsky, the British ambassador’s residence in Rome, earlier this year.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Aaron Chown/Reuters

© Photograph: Aaron Chown/Reuters

© Photograph: Aaron Chown/Reuters

"Roseann, you've got to detach. You've got to disconnect," her worn-out therapist advised.

The emotion was palpable from the moment Fernando Mendoza turned toward the camera to start his postgame interview.

The summer gathering may be about networking but this time of year is for letting it all hang out